1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a cleaning device for a liquid ejecting head, and to a liquid ejecting apparatus equipped with the cleaning device.
2. Related Art
An example of a known liquid ejecting apparatus is an ink jet printer. Such a printer has a liquid ejecting head that is capable of ejecting liquid ink and a cleaning device that cleans the liquid ejecting head. The liquid ejecting head ejects an ink from a plurality of nozzles formed in the nozzle face onto printing media such as paper sheets to form images on the printing media. The cleaning device wipes off the ink adhering to the nozzle face to clean the liquid ejecting head.
JP-A-2001-260368 discloses an example of a cleaning device for a liquid ejecting head. The cleaning device may cause a portion of fabric tape to contact a nozzle face to which ink is adhering in order to wipe the ink off the nozzle face.
The printer can cause, for example, paper dust of paper sheets to be attached to the nozzles and then clog the nozzles. Then, if the printer is continuously used with the nozzles being clogged, the ink remaining on the nozzles can become solidified due to thermal history.
In this case, there is concern that the cleaning device according to JP-A-2001-260368 does not remove the ink that has remained and solidified on the nozzles (hereinafter referred to as solid materials) or resolve the clogging because the fabric tape is only brought into contact with the nozzle face of the liquid ejecting head to wipe the ink off, that is, because the fabric tape does not enter the nozzles.